It's like a common teacher and student in the school city.,The elderly and the teenagers walk together on the streets of the school city.。 All they are doing is waiting.

"I know you're confused right now, my child. Do you find it difficult for you to understand my self-assertion? ”

Although the elderly are not yet considered old people, they are already past the age when they can be called in the prime of life. If you look at it from the perspective of others, he even has some old age that does not fit his age.

"Mentor, I trust your judgment. But then don't you have to be under too much pressure? ”

"Is that all?" The elder let out a helpless sigh. "I can guess what you're really trying to ask. But what I'm telling you is that there are many questions that have no answers. When any one person is faced with the same situation, their choices will be different. And I believe that many of their choices may seem unreasonable to others, just as you doubt me at this time. ”

"No, Mentor, I don't doubt what you mean......"

"Don't think I'm wise, I'm just a little more experienced than you, and I'm nothing else. Your confusion at this time also existed in my heart back then. Would you like to hear, my child, what kind of choice did we encounter back then? ”

"The ...... of the year Choose? ”

"Yes. Now you also have a choice to make, my child. I'm going to tell you a secret, a secret that I think it's time for you to know. As far as I know, although it has never been deliberately guarded, there were no more than nine people who really knew the secret back then. And once you know this secret, it means that you will face our choices with me. I'm not going to tell you what's right, because I don't know what's right. Are you ready? ”

“…… Please say, Mentor. If this was sixteen years ago...... No, strictly speaking, it was left over from seventeen years ago, and it belongs to us. Pretend it doesn't exist, and you'll only end up deceiving yourself. ”

"You have courage, my child. Not everyone knows that, at least not when I did. The elder looked reminiscing and said slowly, "As you know, I used to be your age. At that time, I was also learning from my mentor, just like you are now. My mentor and I mainly studied the secrets hidden in symbols. As you know, because of our history, our ancestors chose to write about their achievements in a variety of hidden ways. Therefore, interpreting their great achievements has become something we must learn. ”

"One day, my mentor received a letter. This letter was so special that it shocked my mentor. Because, it was written in one of our secret writings hundreds of years ago. As far as my guru knows, even among us, this kind of language is no longer in use, and it should not be known to any outsider.

Even more incredibly, after reading the letter, my mentor came to a conclusion that he was stunned to admit: it was an invitation. A letter of invitation from the school city at the time.,An invitation from an unknown object.。

"I think by this point, you can fully imagine how surprised we were.

"Even now, it's a thing that makes a splash if it leaks out. In those days, that was even more so. So on the same day, my guru delivered this invitation to our 'guru' at that time. And the master's reaction can also be imagined. I can also completely understand the reason why the master at that time hid this matter.

Then the question is simple. If it's not going to be published, how should we respond to this invitation?

If it were the association of the Orthodox system, the answer would be obvious. But we are different, we have always admired wisdom, but we have not taken a stand. Galileo, one of the greatest masters in our history, was himself even a representative of modern science. Without his contribution to experimental physics, there would not even be the structure of modern science.

"But even so, we are hesitant to accept the invitation. After a full week of controversy, something unexpected happened.

"My child, as I always tell you, I never like to show off my mentorship. Because the attainments of the Guru belong only to them and have nothing to do with us disciples. But except this time, I have always been proud of the wisdom of my mentor, and even threw myself into the ground. Because while the adults were arguing about the invitation, my mentor was studying the invitation, even though he himself was fully qualified to attend. As a result, he discovered a secret from this invitation.

"I'm not surprised if you're curious about this secret. Unfortunately, the details of this secret are not known to me. At that time, I was too small to know the secret, and my mentor was unlikely to reveal it to me. The only thing I know for sure is that it's this secret that makes the adults make up their minds.

"After proper preparations, we organized a team of twenty-seven people to set foot on this relatively unfamiliar land. Luckily, I'm one of them. But in my opinion, it was for the sake of my mentor's face. I'm also self-aware, because I'm just getting started with the whole co-op program. The older man smiled self-deprecatingly. In fact, I was quickly excluded from the program, which was quite a blow to me. ”

"Blow?"

The boy was keenly aware of the implicit meaning of his mentor's words.

Naturally, he didn't think it would be a frank collaboration at all. His knowledge of history gave him a good idea of the situation in which he had been in the society for most of the years. In fact, as a famous mysterious society in history, they are even the one that has left the most legends and the fewest clues to find. It is easier to believe such an organization to say that it is more vigilant than ordinary people except for itself.

But the mentor used the word "blow".

If this in itself is just a dishonest cooperation, then even if it is excluded, I believe that no one will feel that it has been hit.

Obviously, something seems to have happened in the process of cooperation, so that this originally wary cooperation finally became sincere.

But if that is the case, why did the collaboration end in a break?

"I think you should also be mindful of my words, and that's what pleases me the most. At any given time, you'll discover what's hidden behind ordinary words, and that's what we're most proud of. The elder nodded approvingly. As you might think, we were all wary at first. For it is not so much an invitation as it is a temptation to us. I don't know much about what I know.,The invitation thrown by the school city is obviously very tempting.。 What's more, when we understand a little about the purpose of the establishment of the school city,We found that what this place is pursuing,It's strikingly similar to what we've been pursuing for thousands of years.。 From that moment on, what was originally a cautious and tentative action turned into a sincere expectation of cooperation. You should be able to understand, right? It's like on the way to your destination, and suddenly you meet a charming girl who has the same goal as you, and has a different understanding of the goal than you know. And this charming girl even invited you to walk with her because you have a common goal. ”

"Then I can understand that." The boy laughed. For someone his age, the metaphor was obviously more empathetic. "Having a common pursuit is really the best opportunity to become a companion."

"That's true. But the reality is not so simple. We went through a year-long trial before we actually started working together. I'm sure you're aware of the fact that we're very cautious, even a little too cautious. ”

"Mentors, even if you pursue commonality, it doesn't mean that the content of the attempt can be the same. What kind of cooperation has the city proposed? ”

The older man was silent. After a long while, he spoke slowly.

"As I said before, I'm not really a collaborator, so I can only guess what I'm working with based on the part of my help. The part I assisted with included a detailed translation of the Tree of Life theory. In the same way, there are people in the school city who explain the latest achievements in life sciences to me. Based on these clues, I've been speculating over the years about what exactly we were working together back then. Unfortunately, while I've tried to reconstruct the process as much as possible, the key parts remain obscure. ”

In other words, I still don't know about the cooperation at that time. I thought there would be some clues......"

"Nope. There are still clues. The old man interrupted the young man's emotion. Before coming here, I asked you to do a special review of general knowledge about superpowers. If you haven't slackened, you should know that the core of superpowers lies in the 'personal reality' of the self. This part has a striking similarity with our long-standing theories, and perhaps this is also the inevitable common ground of human beings in the pursuit of truth. I think that's one of the things that attracted us back then. ”

"Indeed...... Even today, I can't help but be curious when I learn this. ”

"I remember that I mentioned in the information I gave you.,For School City,There's a topic that has always been the object of their research.。 That is, some of those who have awakened themselves to their personal reality in untapped situations. School City uses a technical term in the jewelry industry to refer to these special abilities, and they are called 'rough stones'.

"A large part of the materials provided to us by the school city materials that I was in charge of translating were studies on these 'rough stones'. I don't know if this is the initiative of the school city.,Or if it's our request.。 But there is no doubt that the 'rough stone' was a core element of that collaboration. ”

At this, the elder suddenly paused.

"By the way, that's it...... I remember that at that time, the school city side also gave this cooperation plan a code name.。 At the time, I thought it was a good code name for both of us. If my memory is correct, the codename should be—"

He muttered as if he remembered something.

“Smaragdus。”